Wizz Air expects for 45 Airbus A320neo family aircraft to remain grounded this summer due to inspections of their Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan (GTF) engines. In 2025, the low cost airline anticipates for 35 aircraft to be grounded, which will enable it to return to growth, following almost no increase in capacity this year, a rarity for a major low cost carrier, which generally rely on wide-scale growth to maintain revenue and profitability. According to CEO Jozsef Varadi, Wizz Air will take delivery of three aircraft each month from Airbus. That will result in “significant expansion in 2025 and 2026”. Next year, the airline expects a 20% increase in capacity, while the following year will see an additional 20 - 25% capacity hike.
Wizz Air’s bases in Skopje and Belgrade have been impacted by the grounding of aircraft this summer. During the ongoing third quarter, Wizz Air’s year-on-year capacity in Skopje is down 13.4%, while its reduction in Belgrade stands at 25.9%. However, over the past two weeks, the carrier has put an additional 50.000 seats on sale out of Belgrade by adding an extra fifteen weekly flights from the Serbian capital in September and October, with a total of nine routes seeing a boost in frequencies.
Mr Varadi believes that Airbus delivery delays will not have a substantial negative impact on the airline's capacity next year. "We are making assumptions that Airbus will have delivery delays, but they already have six-month delivery delays. The real impact will be fairly limited", Mr Varadi said. Earlier this year, Silvia Mosquera, Wizz Air’s Executive Vice President and Group Chief Commercial Officer, told EX-YU Aviation News the airline plans to start growing operations out of its bases in Skopje and Belgrade next year. “Next year, there will be less of an impact as some of the engines will come back from the shops so I think that next year we will see growth from Wizz Air. The Western Balkans are a very relevant market for us. Our intention is to further grow in the region”, Ms Mosquera said.
Hopefully they bring back Ljubljana to Luton
ReplyDeleteThey will most likely move from LJU to TRS.
DeleteOr Charleroi
DeleteI hope they increase skopje - Ljubljana, return luton and charleroi…
DeleteAs I said, it is more likely they will move to TRS. They will have more flights and destinations there than in LJU (2 weekly TIA and OTP compared to 3 weekly SKP).
DeleteLet's hope this increase in BEG helps in getting the airport past 8.5 million this year.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you mean 9.5 mil. 9 million is already achived with current growth
DeleteDaj boze
DeleteAre they ever gonna come ti Zagreb?
ReplyDeleteto*
DeleteYes.
DeleteNo.
DeleteThey will come.
DeleteNope
DeleteHope to see Wizzair back Basel-Prishtina
ReplyDeleteWell they won't because Albanians would rather fly with reiseburo mafia airlines.
DeleteEasyjet already flies Basel...
DeleteEasyjet is not Wizzair
DeleteOk why would Wizz start a new route that they would face heavy competition on when they can just start a different one
DeleteThere are people here who are jealous of Pristina's successes, they try to smear the same.
DeleteLet's hope they will return to growth as announced next year.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't blame Wizz directly for the issue with the engines, this shows that the airports need to attract different carriers and this might be a good opportunity to try attracting other low cost airlines to Skopje
ReplyDeleteHow many aircraft will they have based in SKP and how many in BEG this winter in the end?
ReplyDeleteNo one knows yet. They have not finalized their winter network.
DeleteSKP can definitely handle up to 10 planes because they use some planes for INI flights.
DeleteBEG maybe 5 or 6.
SKP will have 4 A320s this winter.
DeleteWe have been used to lots of growth from Wizz so this is unfortunate. Hope they manage to navigate this crisis and come back stronger.
ReplyDeleteI like the special livery on this plane.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteHope for some new routes next year.
ReplyDeleteYeah Balkan is a very relevant market for them, thats why they dont launch any new routes now. In the past days they announced new routes from Rome, Milan, Gdansk, Warsaw, Cluj and Bucharest. Why investing in SKP where there is no competition, even if they leave SKP base with only 1 plane nobody will complain.
ReplyDeleteWell BEG is important for them if they announced so many new increases from September.
DeleteThats only for SEP and OCT.
DeleteBecause winter schedule is far from finalized.
DeleteHope so
Deletethis would be the perfect timing for Ryanair to attack Wizzair at SKP
ReplyDeleteThey can launch Arlanda, Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Weeze, Bergamo, Vienna, Prague, Barcelona, Paphos…
DeleteHoping they bring back BASEL-OHRID 4 flights per week next year
ReplyDeleteWe are missing that route
Also hope they return Skopje-Luxembourg.
DeleteSKP-BCN is more important than LUX.
DeleteSo many airlines having issues with neo engines.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much Pratt and Whitney had to pay Wizz.
ReplyDeleteHopefully they start also paying entitled compensations to affected by delays customers without nowadays needed Involvement of specialized lawyer agencies and debt collectors. Respectful treatment of the customers could contribute to possible growth as well.
ReplyDeleteBring back Belgrade Billund :)
ReplyDeleteThe president (the second-in-command after the CEO) was just fired with immediate effect and last week we learnt about the closure of Debrecen base (their absolute home turf with zero competition). They are in big trouble. PR announcements about the rosy future won't change it.
ReplyDeleteWe need Basel-Pristina and Basel-Ohrid back
ReplyDeleteSome more links to Liverpool please
ReplyDeleteWizzair need to return flights to Ohrid (OHD):
ReplyDeleteMalmo
Friedrichshafen
London
Basel
Milano
Will they enter Saudi market?
ReplyDelete